I went and saw 'The Rite' on Monday, just because it'd been a while since I'd gone to the movies, and I like a good exorcism movie. It wasn't too bad. They downplayed the horror aspect slightly (maybe because the film is loosely based on the true story of an American priest studying to be an exorcist in Rome- it's less about the visceral horror and more about the spiritual warfare involved), so the film wasn't quite a horror movie and not quite a drama. Things didn't get truly scary. Anthony Hopkins played the older experienced exorcist, and IDK, his performance was a bit flat in places. The footage of Rome made me feel quite nostalgic, and there was the added bonus of Ciaran Hinds gliding around in a Dominican habit as the would-be exorcist's course lecturer. Wouldn't have called it a waste of money, but then if I knew what it was going to be like, I might have just waited for it to screen on Foxtel.

I'm on a shopping embargo during Lent, but still tossing up whether or not to pre-order Umberto Eco's latest novel, which will be available in English in November. Kind of torn between ordering a nice hardback copy or instead waiting for a cheaper paperback edition (no Australian release date at all, sigh). I'm quite impressed with Amazon UK offering free shipping for orders over 25 pounds to Australia now; not that their prices are as good as The Book Depository's, but TBD doesn't sell DVDs or music, sooo free shipping for those items is quite a bonus. Might preorder Eco's novel and maybe the DVD release of Rev., since I enjoyed that so much (and it's coming out at roughly the same time).